Cabinet nod to expand infra, academic capacity of five IITs

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved expansion of academic and infrastructure capacity of five new IITs which were set up in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Karnataka.

The total cost for the proposed expansion has been pegged at Rs 11,828.79 crore over a period of four years from 2025-26 to 2028-29, an official statement said. The Cabinet also approved creation of 130 faculty posts at the level of professor in these IlTs.

Five new state-of-art research parks are also coming up to strengthen industry-academia linkage, the statement said. These IITs are located in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Palakkad in Kerala, Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, Jammu in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, Dharwad in Karnataka.

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Student strength in these IITs will be increased by more than 6,500 in the next four years with enhancement of 1,364 students in first year, 1,738 students in second year, 1,767 students in the third year and 1,707 students in the fourth year across under graduate, post graduate and PhD programmes put together.

On completion of construction, these five IITs will be able to cater to 13,687 students as against current student strength of 7,111 -- an increase of 6,576 students. With this increase in the total number of seats, additional more than 6,500 students will now be able to fulfil their aspirations of studying in the most prestigious and sought-after educational institutions in the country.